This is an interesting impossibility. Of course, it will NOT work!
Medical science has not yet succeeded in repairing nerve injuries caused by broken spinal cords. That is why there are so many paralyzed people on the planet. So I cannot be convinced that the surgeons can cut off a head and join it to a donor body whose spinal cord had already been decapitated, with full or even partial restoration of functions of the spinal nerves.
Interesting impossibility, though. Society could transplant the heads (and brains) of dying geniuses and transplant them onto the bodies of healthy but dumb people and criminals. LOL.
A team of elite surgeons from around the world will soon be attempting a medical
first — a full human head transplant. No, this is not a movie, sci-fi
novel, or tragically late April Fools’ prank. This is actually
happening, and no one knows if it will work or what it could mean if it
does.
The patient (read: guinea pig) is a 30-year-old Russian man named
Valery Spiridonov. He’s not just doing this for fun, though. Spiridonov
has a terminal form of spinal atrophy called Werdnig-Hoffman disease.
There’s no known medical treatment that will save his life, except
maybe taking his head off and placing it on a different, healthier body.
Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero will be in charge of decapitating and
re-capitating Spiridonov, following a procedure laid out in a paper
published in the journal Surgical Neurology International. The operation
is expected to take 36 hours and require 150 medical staff.
First, Spiridonov’s head and new body will be cooled to slow the rate
of cell decomposition. Then, doctors will hook up all the major blood
vessels in the neck to machines that will keep things flowing during the
transfer. The spinal cord will then be severed and the head will be
moved to the new body for attachment. Canavero plans to use polyethylene
glycol injections to get the cells and connective tissues to stick
together, binding the head to the new body. After that, it’s simply a
matter of connecting blood vessels, muscles, and nerves.
Doctors expect it will take up to a year for Spiridonov’s spinal cord
to completely fuse with the new body, but that’s far from the only
potential complication. No one really knows what switching bodies will
do to the brain. The exposure to completely different chemical and
electrical signals could drive a man mad. There’s also the possibility
the new body will reject Spiridonov’s head, even with powerful
anti-rejection drugs.
The project will officially launch in June as Canavero begins recruiting staff for the procedure. It could take place as early as next year. If this doesn’t work, there’s always the Futurama-style head in a jar.
The African continent at night is awesome. It is a vast land with much fewer city lights than Europe. But it is no longer the dark continent. This peaceful swathe of cool blue signifies hope and potential. If our people could just appreciate this enormous gift which God bestowed on us, and work together to harness the continent's huge resources, Africa would become the paradise it truly is.
We live in the Garden of Eden, designed, planted and nurtured by God Himself, yet we spend much of our time killing and hacking each other to death! The entire globe is the most wondrous creation of the Almighty. When you look at this tremendous piece of marble at night from space, it is stupendously and breathtakingly beautiful. The creator looked at what He created, and He was pleased.
The entire universe whose end we do not know sustains our galaxy and constellation. The moon is there to give us our tides and weather while illuminating the planet at night. The sun is there in its full glory to provide light and life. Our planet is the only one we know with life as we know it. And Man is at the center of it all. Today, I feel great to be a human being. It was all made for me. Thank you, Lord Almighty!
NASA Earth Observatory. Black Marble: Africa and Europe at night, as viewed by NASA’s Suomi Satellite.
